


Cutting The Strings

by ShinysMindPalace



Category: OFF (Game)
Genre: Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-14
Updated: 2013-04-14
Packaged: 2017-12-08 12:42:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,118
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/761427
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ShinysMindPalace/pseuds/ShinysMindPalace
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Zacharie just wants to keep the Batter pure. Shame he had to break his heart.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Cutting The Strings

The batter couldn't believe it. Couldn't stand to see it. He didn't want to believe it was true. But the week had been hell on both of them, what with the parasite inside Zach. He had been slowly forgetting things, just little things at first. He'd forget how to make change, or the name of his items, he even forgot the names of the Add-Ons. But never anything important. Until today, that is, the day he couldn't remember the batter. The halfway holy man wanted to tear down the whole zone to find the specter who did this to Zacharie, wanted to pull it to pieces with his bare hands and sear its flesh in the plastic oceans. He wanted vengeance, and for once in his usually violent life, there was not a thing he could do. 

Zacharie clung to the batter's chest, whispering to him apologies for something he couldn't even recall doing to a man he could barely remember. The batter wouldn't cry. Not in front of the suffering merchant. He just kept moving, carrying Zacharie with him through the specters of the zone. The Add-Ons kept the worst of the parasite at bay, although doing so was taxing for them. The batter paid them little mind as they shifted around Zacharie's stomach, which had grown black and oily. The batter had nearly fought his way to the judge. He was so close to the guardian of zone 0 he could taste it.

"Zacharie...? Batter?! What's going on?" Pablo jumped in fright when he saw Zacharie in the Batter's arms, rushing up to the holy servant and his charge and somehow forcing the specters around them to back the fuck off. The batter had no words, simply laying down the now-wheezing Zacharie in front of the grotesque cat. 

"Batter, _what happened_?"

"... Just fix him. He's forgetting." 

"I need to know what happened first!"

"Open his sweater. You will see." The Batter never sounded more defeated in his life, looked smaller, seemed more... Broken, than in that weak moment of confession. The judge just nodded silently, before the Add-Ons scooted aside, pulling up the sweater as they went. It was bad. A leech-like thing was imbedded in Zacharie's stomach, black tendrils of corruption spreading across his entire body from the scene of the bite. It was clear the Batter attempted to purify it, many times in fact, judging by the bruises on both Zacharie and the parasite. To no avail, it seemed. 

"Batter... I don't know what you think I can do about this... I couldn't even save Valerie..." 

"Just try." The Batter's hat hid his eyes, so the Judge couldn't be sure of what the missionary was feeling, but he swore the man who never knew uncertainty before... Was crying. 

"I can't guarantee he would even remember you after I get this thing out. Please don't make me do it."

"Just. Try." The judge saw he couldn't persuade the puppet, and he sighed. He sunk his claws into the leech, the thing going still in an instant, dead. However, so too did Zacharie. 

"... What did you do? WHAT DID YOU DO TO HIM?!" Though the leech-turned-Zacharie lie dead between them, the batter's bat was at the ready to inflict some divine retribution at a moment's notice. "WHY DID YOU KILL HIM?!?" 

The judge was terrified. The man never raised his voice above a low murmur, this... This was bad. Very bad. Very very very bad. The batter lunged for the cat, the judge yowling before skittering off. "I TOLD YOU THAT YOU SHOULDN'T HAVE MADE ME DO IT!" was his rebuttal as the hurting holy man clutched at the lifeless body beneath him, not giving a damn when the specters approach him again. The corpse was still warm. A small ghoul approached the batter, looking the silently sobbing man in the eye. 

"We'll help you join him." It offered, indicating that they would be willing to put him out of his misery, maybe even painlessly. "He would remember you if we did." The Batter's four eyes widen, the miserable missionary looking to the thing in shock. 

"He... You can sense him?" The ghoul nods. 

"He's lonely. But he's been dead for some time." The Batter's four eyes widen, the miserable missionary looking to the thing in shock. 

"He... You can sense him?" The ghoul nods. 

"He's lonely. But he's been dead for some time." The batter stares in awe for a moment as the thing continues, "He misses you. And he remembers you now." 

"... Will it hurt?"

"A little."

"Then make sure the Add-Ons are not harmed."

\------------------------------

The batter woke in a white room, a vague awareness of motion in the room ceasing as the deceased man sat up in... A coffin? That's what Zacharie had called them. That the souls of the non-spectral dead would be carried to limbo in them. 

"Finally, you're awake. I trust you were well-received by the specters?" The Batter's neck cracked as his head whirls to where a certain merchant stood, smirking and wearing his mask. The cat-masked man approached slowly, taking the Batter's hand in his and pulling him out of the box he had been in. The room was filled with strange people, disfigured as if they were specters, some completely normal, but it was all... Normal. Peaceful. 

"...You're okay..." The hardly holy man leaped up from his box, picking Zacharie straight up off the ground and holding him close. The merchant grunted, before wrapping his arms around the batter's neck, holding him close. 

"Yes. I am perfectly fine. And are your strings cut?"

The Batter frowned, setting Zacharie back down. "Strings?"

"Ah, so they didn't tell you." Zacharie sounded bitter, some of the disfigured in the room flinching. "I was trying to cut your strings. So you were no longer a puppet. Of course, now you lack faith, but..." He pulled the batter close, whispering in his ear, "If you still need a puppeteer, I've always wondered what it would be like to have such a loyal and faithful servant..."

The merchant instead was again held close, the murdered missionary kissing Zacharie's cheek before whispering, "I would rather be of my own will, so I can assure you I love you, from my own heart and not because of some stupid strings." The cat-man's eyes widened as the Batter's four eyes looked fondly into his, pulling the mask away and kissing him slow. Zacharie had only prayed that the holy man would have reacted favorably, and as the two held each other close, the room emptied itself of onlookers. This was a good way, Zacharie decided. Hopefully, the Batter wouldn't try to purify anyone in the afterlife.


End file.
